Curly Martin

curly

April 12, 2016

HMRC quarterly digital tax reporting – Coaches you need to know this.

HMRC are planning to bring in the requirement for all small businesses and self-employed workers to submit quarterly digital tax updates. I have already written to my MP expressing my concerns about the extra burdens this will put on my business as my accounts are prepared by an independent bookkeeper. More news on the subject – the Administrative Burdens Advisory Board (ABAB), has refused to support the Government’s plans.

Here is the extract from my March/April newsletter.http://www.achievementspecialists.co.uk/freebie/newsletter

The local Federation of Small Businesses is concerned (as am I) about the Government’s plans to require all self-employed and small businesses to provide mandatory quarterly Digital Tax Reporting by 2020. They are asking members to write to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, outlining the impact that the change will have on you and your business. I think that all coaches need to take action now to prevent massive workloads in the future. The FSB are recommending that you include in your letter, the impact that mandatory (rather than voluntary) Quarterly Tax Reporting will mean to you and your business and ask within the letter that the Government will ensure any decision to proceed with Quarterly Tax Reporting is on a voluntary basis only.

Send a copy of your letter to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ and send a copy to your local MP.

Apparently, there is an Independent HMRC overseeing body, called the Administrative Burdens Advisory Board (ABAB), and it has refused to support the Government’s plans to force small businesses to submit quarterly digital tax reporting, according to the Federation of Small Businesses – which I recommend all coaches join: Apparently the ABAB are saying, “compulsory digital record keeping and quarterly online updates is not an approach we can endorse.”

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said that the ABAB has used its annual report to underline

“significant concerns” that, “the proposals for quarterly updates will be more burdensome than they currently are with increased record keeping and compliance costs.” This criticism from the overseeing body, the ABAB, adds to general growing worries about HMRC’s plans to mandate smaller businesses and the self-employed to go on to the untried digital tax returns platform. The ABAB report also mentioned that the software was an area of concern, “reservations around the current capability of software being able to deliver HMRC’s vision and the appetite amongst small businesses to utilise them.”

If you think that this extra work will impact you in a negative way I suggest you get involved and lobby your MP.